I also talked to Dr Nolan about the set of tax calculators that have been released and he asked me to remind everyone that the October 2008 cuts will only give you half of the total shown in the calculators – as they are in per annum terms but October-April is only six months long. So someone on 60,000 will get a $430 tax cut this financial year, and then a $860 cut over the 2009/10 financial year.

Furthermore, the level of wage growth assumed by the Labour and NZIER calculators both assume wage growth of about 3%pa – marginally slower than the current rate.